


Anger Management 101 WIP DONT READ

by vbligs



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Maybe - Freeform, Unrequited Love, deacon/beau is in there if you squint, hmu w that gay shit, im jk yall better BELIEVE that deacon/beau is happening, mac has a shitty childhood crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-08-19 13:17:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vbligs/pseuds/vbligs
Summary: MacCready swears she keeps meaning to explain, but he knows she never will. A combination of pride and self preservation, maybe. It's hard to figure Miller out, hard to try and get a handle on her motivations and desires, because she'll go caps hunting without remorse and then turn around and return a Deathclaw egg to it's mother. Crazy shi -- crap. He bites his lip and grimaces, surly and sour as the swill Charlie calls a drink."I'm not a kid," he whines, childishly. Internally, he winces, wonders why the hell they're being so open with eachother. Usually it's her tossing ammo and caps and armor at him without a second glance, or when he's hurt real bad, pulling out the sniper rifle and mowing down anything that gets inbetween her and him. A force to be reckoned with, that's for da -- dang sure. Miller's eyebrow quirks, and she picks at an old scar with a wry smile.





	Anger Management 101 WIP DONT READ

One thing MacCready always liked about Miller is that she was a firecracker, one hand always on her hip-holstered gun and both eyes jumping from shadow to shadow, ready to shoot lead into the forehead of anything that breathed, fought, yelled. 'A Vaultie with character,' he'd say (never to her face of course, he liked breathing.)

Charlie likes to joke that one day his taste in women will get him killed - he always jibes back with a remark or some witticism, waves him off with a scowl and another gulp of shitty whiskey.

Miller's currently holed up in her room at the Rexford, nursing a bruised pride and fixing up her legs - MacCready knows better than to bother her when she's doing bodywork, the vulnerability makes him uncomfortable, leaves her on edge. That, and the way she looks at tech reminds him too much of the way Lucy would look at a problem, try and solve it with soft words and that beautiful brain of hers. Leaves a foul taste in his mouth and his eyes burning - no thanks. 

But Miller wasn't Lucy, and she never will be. Honestly, the old (he thinks she's old, she's never said her age, but her locs are white as bone and she's got worry lines up and down her face) sortof, kindof, maybe Vaultie-turned-merc with a penchant for tech was more akin to a sister, if anything. Reminded him of the kids back in the Capital Wastes, of Little Lamplight and the mungo that bothered them too often to be fun but was fun enough not to be a bother - Miller always reminded him of things. Things he would've rather left to sit in the Capital Wasteland.

A glance at the Nuka Cola themed clock lets MacCready get a sense of the time, that and Magnolia left about thirty-or-so minutes ago and now it's just him and Charlie and the couple of drifters nursing chem-crashes. All in all, a regular night at the Third Rail, but it's quarter til three in the morning, and MacCready's struck with an all body ache all at once. Years of surviving the Commonwealth does that to a man, he surmised, shifting in his seat to help alleviate some of the pressure on his lower back. In the back of his head, he knew no matter what he did he was still going to wake up tired and sore and just wanting to go back to sleeping on something that wasn't the floor for once. The real question is see if Charlie will let him stay the night, or if he dares to chance it with Miller, who's got a half snapped leg and anger in her eyes after they'd gotten ambushed by a pack of Gunners.

Tiptoe around Miller the living bomb, or (maybe) sleep in the V.I.P. lounge like he used to.

Not much of a choice in his book.

He stands, tosses some caps at the foulmouthed bartending robot, and leaves the Third Rail silently, pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets hard enough that he sees stars and mini nukes - anything to stay awake. He pinches his cheeks, pinches pockets, stumbles to the Rexford with the taste of stale cigarettes and bad beer in his mouth (he firmly decides he's _much _too old for this shi - crap, because he's so goddam - so tired, and he only tastes the swill he lives off of when he's tired.) Grumbles his way up to the second floor and toes open the door to see Miller still hunched over the metal and ceramic and only God knows what else that she calls legs - familiarity burns the back of his throat again, murky faces swim in his vision and he distantly remembers the light of a soft-hacked Pip-Boy and the 'Lone Wanderer' (Three Dog's nickname was cliché and stupid, but it had stuck) teaching the rest of his motley crew how to help out Timmy when his leg started acting up. 'Polio' she'd called it, gesturing to the stump that served as her left leg, laughing as Bee kept bringing her screws to build another leg. Building and tinkering and Pip-Boys, the Commonwealth was too familiar, left an ache in his heart that he partly deserved.

The Rexford was notorious for its falling plaster and slight smell of mold, even moreso for the creaky, wheezing doors, the sound enough to remind her of the pneumatic hiss of -- of a door she thought she'd forgotten 10 years prior, 10mm bullets whizzing past her glasses and short cropped hair. It's involuntary, the quick movement of her wrist, unholster, safety off and finger on the trigger, chamber pointed squarely at the center of MacCready's forehead. The Rexford is lawless, all sharp teeth and chemically induced rage, so this isn't uncommon. Still not common enough for MacCready not to flinch (he assumes this is a good thing, you can't trust people if they constantly point a gun at you.)

"Shi -- Crap, Boss, 's just me! Hold your fire," MacCready's either too drunk (he's not drunk, he knows he's not) or too drowned in half lit memories to care for their usual dance, wherein he doesn't make any quick movements and her pulse returns to normal, and he waits for the permanent furrow between her eyebrows to soften - that's the game. He doesn't quite know why he deviates, especially this night of all nights, in Goodneighboor of all places. He bats the gun's muzzle from the frown lines on his forehead, pushes it off to the side and offers a cheeky grin as a sort of... well, not apology. You don't apologize if you're the one with a gun pointed at you, that's just common sense.

It takes a moment, but she warms up, holsters the 10mm and sighs, pulling long dreadlocks into her usual haphazard ponytail, "Do _not_ sneak up on me again - I could've shot you." She says this, and yet she still hunches over her two prosthetic legs with a wild look in her eye, and one hand gripping a screwdriver like she's about to drive it into MacCready's eye (he knows she won't, she's all Wastelander charm and Vault kindness.)

"But you _didn't_."

Miller snorts, starts buckling her right leg back on (it's the only one she's gotten fixed up so far, and MacCready's half tempted to remind her of him having to carry her back to the dingy Rexford room they'd rented) with a grunt and a flick of her wrist, a practiced movement, using her teeth to buckle the straps tight, tighter still, "And you're lucky for that. You're still just a kid, hate to cut your life short over my own -- hate to cut your life short."

MacCready swears she keeps meaning to explain herself, but he knows she never will - it's a combination of pride and self preservation, maybe. It's hard to figure Miller out, hard to try and get a handle on her motivations and desires, because she'll go caps hunting without remorse and then turn around and return a Deathclaw egg to it's mother. Crazy shi -- crap. He bites his lip and grimaces, surly and sour as the swill Charlie calls a drink.

"I'm not a kid," he whines, childishly. Internally, he winces, wonders why the hell they're being so open with eachother. Usually it's her tossing ammo and caps and armor at him without a second glance, or when he's hurt real bad, pulling out the sniper rifle and mowing down anything that gets inbetween her and him. A force to be reckoned with, that's for da -- dang sure. Miller's eyebrow quirks, and she picks at an old scar with a wry smile.

"You're a fuckin' kid still, Mac. Twenty-two and you think you already know everything - fuckin' hell, I remember twenty-two. What a time."

Her voice is sharp, sharper than she meant it to be, but the truth stings and she ducks away, staggers to her feet and hotfoots it to the sleeping bag in the corner - MacCready doesn't know what to make of this, whatever this is. Her outbursts are usually just her fuc -- messing with Super Mutants, picking them off one by one, a look of secret enjoyment plastered over premature wrinkles. A sly smile, like she had a secret only she and her heavily modified sniper rifle shared. silent contemplation of the spent .308 rounds that would fall to the floor in a makeshift halo. Never verbal, never outward, always just that silent rage that set his teeth on edge, his trigger finger itching, and a distinct craving for a cigarette (that one was from a more tangible reason, she chainsmoked cigarettes when she was stressed.)

He's tempted to see where it goes, push her to her limit, see what sorts of things she's been hiding behind scarred lips and angry eyes.

"What, and you know so much more? You can't be much more than twenty-something. Unless you're some sorta synth bullshit --"

"Oh shut _up. _You act like - like the world is at your fingertips or some shit. You know what I did when I was twenty-two? I stood at my father's grave and cursed the Enclave, and I wished the Capital Wastes didn't have water. So you can shut the fuck up."


End file.
